LRAX (Light Range Acoustic Xenomorph) by Agnès Pe

That humming background sound is ancient—the ringing of a huge bell. Exploding into a mass of intensely hot matter, pulsing out vast sound waves, contracting and expanding the matter, heating where compressed, cooling where it was less dense. This descending tone parallels the heat death of the universe, connecting all the discrete atoms into a vibrational wave. This cosmic background radiation is the echo of the big bang.

Steve Goodman

LRAX (Light Range Acoustic Xenomorph) is a communication entity that sends sound waves, coordinating with the light that can receive. They cause widespread disorientation and the loss of these orientation axes requires new compasses, new roads and new maps, but none has yet been secured. The sound of the LRAX is both invulnerable (for some) and insidious (for the bodies under surveillance). The sound of LRAX reminds the Stuka sirens, which were the image of the panic of the Ju-87 plane (used in the Second World War by the USA).

The sound of the sirens is reproduced in the movie Dunkirk(Christopher Nolan, 2017) contextualized in the Second World War. The use of sound refers us to the Trumpets of Jericho and reminds us that the disaster does not have a specific moment, despite being able to be warned by Bill Kilgore when in Apocalypse Now(Francis Ford Coppola, 1979), to the rhythm of "The cavalcade of the Valkyries "of Wagner, when bombs a Vietnamese village. Like when they announce a crowd of protesters over the PA system that is going to start the dispersion by means of sonic cannons or the so-called LRAD devices (Large Range Acoustic Devices).

LRAX emits supernatural electronic signals. They are the euphoric tones of laconic inhabitants of other planets and their earthly subyugadxs. LRAX is the sonification of light at the molecular or quantum level. Everything is in motion, it is vibrating, and all entities are potential means that can feel or whose vibrations can be felt by other entities. Xenomorphic entities whose beauty can provide us with confusion within the imagery of destruction.

LRAX is part of the project Jericó, which explores the use of sound and music as sonic weapons. In recent years the use of sound and music as a weapon has increased. From the use of sound guns for the dispersion of protesters to songs used in a loop to torment prisionerxs in jails. The sound becomes an invisible tool to generate terror.

Agnès Pe(Lleida, 1985) works with sound, above all limitations imposed by genres or musical styles. The endless curiosity, the interdisciplinary practices, the limits of the context and the spurious attitude that she demonstrates with respect to the diverse elements with which she works, are the fundamental characteristics of his work. Musicologist and self-taught and multidisciplinary researcher, she is interested in the exception, that which borders on social margins, whatever their origin, always looking for new ways of relating to the elements that she recomposes.

She has performed concerts in CA2M (Móstoles), Macba (Bcn), Larraskito (Bilbao) or in Tabakalera (Donosti). She is currently conducting the plunderphonia and digital kitsh radio show "Mitt Paté" at Radio On Berlin.